For my use as a high school teacher, the greatest tool in the Web 2.0 category would be Moodle, a very simple form of webCT. As Trent Batson says, "Seat time is being recognized as less and less relevant as a measure of learning. " Moodle enables an instructor to post assignments, resources, and calendars, which students can access and respond to in their own postings. Thus, it has the capability of freeing student and teacher from the tyranny of "seat time" and offers the potential of much greater flexibility, ranging from online classes to a resource for students to catch up on missed work while absent. Unfortunately, although I have a Moodle site for each of my classes through online.lcps.k12.nm.us
Another Web 2.0 tool that will be helpful to me is del.ici.ous, specifically because through it, I can access texts that can be annotated. A student's ability to annotate a text is recognized as an important, higher level skill, which I have been doing with my Pre-AP students for 10 years (because the program requires that they purchase their own books). My other students can't practice that skill directly since they can't write in state text books. With increasing pressure to make "adequate yearly progress" (impossible yearly progress), and with the superintendent threatening to prevent us from requiring purchased texts in the AP sequence, access to texts that can be annotated is becoming increasingly important.
I always offer podcasting as an option for creative activities associated with readings in my classes.
TiVo and iTunes have multiple potentials. I like the idea of phones being used to monitor traffic and for "citizen journalism." Another fun thing I have discovered in Web 2.0 is Wordle, but I haven't found a use for it yet, beyond making word clouds.
I like the empowering sort of words given to Web 2.0 in these articles: "services, not packaged software," participation, collective intelligence, and "an attitude, not a technology."
Hasta la vista!
Judy
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